Day 293: Flatliners

I know they have made a remake of this and I just saw Popstar again last night which has the scene in it about Bill Hader F-lining in this spare time. So, this movie is still very much in the public consciousness.

Flatliners is about a group of medical school students who decide they want to see what the afterlife is like. They take turns clinically killing each other and bringing each other back to life. Each of them, on their own, starts seeing things that shouldn't be there and experiencing bizarre encounters with things from their past over which they harbor guilt. When they begin discussing the situation, they wonder if they haven't brought back something with them from the land of the dead.

The premise, of course, reminded me a bit of the recent sci-fi movie The Discovery. Seemingly smart people letting themselves die is a heck of a hook for a horror movie. Kevin Bacon and Kiefer Sutherland are the two opposite sides of the argument in this movie as Bacon thinks they are tampering with forces beyond their control and Sutherland wants to keep pushing it as far as he can. Caught in between are Oliver Platt, Julia Roberts and William Baldwin almost making this a final brat pack movie. Joel Schumacher continued following his muse with Sutherland here from The Lost Boys. I remember this being a pretty grim but well-shot movie.

If you need to kill time one afternoon, Flatliners is a decent way to do it. It didn't change the face of horror but it is a solid addition to the cannon.